Despite attempts from emergentist models and soul-based hypotheses, the fundamental problem of consciousness remains unsolved at the level of identity selection. No theory explains why one subjective identity is selected rather than another. The CIFT solves the selection problem by isolating specific spatiotemporal coordinates at instantiation as the sole determinant of subjective individuality. Instantiation represents the exact moment where selfhood begins. The CIFT systematically invalidates alternative solutions to the selection problem through a structured thought experiment tier-system with tier 1 (...) = feasible today, tier 2 = feasible with technological advancements, and tier 3 = conceptually coherent but impossible due to universal constraints. The CIFT is the only framework that guarantees subjective uniqueness independent of biology, emergence, quantum indiscernibility, and atomic configuration. (shrink)

One of the basic assumptions of David Lewis's formal semantics of counterfactuals is that the crucial relation of comparative similarity between possible worlds is a linear ordering.Yet there are arguments that when we take into account relativistic features of space-time, this relationshould be only a partial ordering. The first part of the paper deals with the question of how to formulate appropriatetruth conditions for counterfactuals under the supposition of a partial ordering of possible worlds. Such truthconditions will be put forward, (...) and it will be argued that they are more general than those proposed in recentliterature, because they turn out to be applicable also when the so-called Limit Assumption is not met. The secondpart analyzes two relativistically invariant ways of interpreting spatiotemporal counterfactuals with antecedentsreferring to free-chance point events. After briefly examining key differences between these two approaches,the issue of their extension for a broader class of antecedents will be addressed. Following the approach of Finkelstein, who has proposed a specifically designed similarity relation between possible worlds, servingas a generalization tool in the case of one of the above intuitions, the possibility of a similar extension forthe second interpretation will be considered. The main result of the paper is the theorem to the effect that thegeneralization of the second intuition is impossible to obtain. More specifically, the theorem proved in the paperstates that there is no similarity relation which together with the Lewis-style truth conditions for counterfactualswould imply the second of the above interpretations as a special case. Some consequences of thistheorem for the applicability of the Lewis logic of counterfactuals to quantum phenomena will be briefly mentionedat the end of the paper. (shrink)

Intuitively, we can conceive of the existence of a conscious state as a pure activity that does not necessarily require a body (or even a brain). This idea has found new support in certain recent theories that present the possibility of a totally disconnected and disembodied consciousness. Against this hypothesis, I argue that human experience is intrinsically embodied and embedded, though in a specific way. Using Sartre’s phenomenology of the body, I first analyze the concept of consciousness as intentionality and (...) a world-disclosing activity, thus explaining how conscious activity can only be expressed through a body that is spatiotemporally related to the world. Then, I argue that bodily consciousness does not necessarily imply the actual presence of an anatomical body but, rather, a process of spatialization and temporalization (hodological space and temporal synthesis) through the “spatiotemporal body”. Finally, I test my thesis by critiquing some cases of apparent disembodied/disconnected consciousness, i.e., dreams, out-of-body experiences, and the brain-in-a-vat scenario. (shrink)

The paper is an attempt to take Ingarden’s unfinished critique of idealism one step further. It puts forward a schematic solution to the external-world realist’sproblem of how to explain the fact that we can identify and re-identify fictions, entities that in one sense do not exist. The solution contains three proposals: to accept, with Husserl and Ingarden, that there are universals with intentionality (Husserl’s “intentional essences”), to accept, contra Husserl and Ingarden, an immanent realism for universals, and to accept Ingarden’s (...) view that there is a mode of being distinct from those put forward in traditional metaphysics, that of purely intentional being. Together, these views imply that all the instances of a specific intentional universal are directed towards the same intentional object; be this object a really existing object or a fiction, a purely intentional being. (shrink)

A diffusive predator-prey system with both the additive Allee effect and the fear effect in the prey subject to Neumann boundary conditions is considered in this paper. Firstly, non-negative and non-trivial solution a priori estimations are shown. Furthermore, for specific parameter ranges, the absence of non-constant positive solutions is demonstrated. Secondly, we use the linearized theory to investigate the stability of non-negative constant solutions. The spatially homogeneous and non-homogeneous periodic solutions, as well as non-constant steady state solutions, are next investigated (...) by using Allee effect parameters as the bifurcation parameter. Finally, numerical simulation is used to illustrate some theoretical results. (shrink)

Frequent pattern mining is an effective approach for spatiotemporal association analysis of mobile trajectory big data in data-driven intelligent transportation systems. While existing parallel algorithms have been successfully applied to frequent pattern mining of large-scale trajectory data, two major challenges are how to overcome the inherent defects of Hadoop to cope with taxi trajectory big data including massive small files and how to discover the implicitly spatiotemporal frequent patterns with MapReduce. To conquer these challenges, this paper presents a (...) MapReduce-based Parallel Frequent Pattern growth algorithm to analyze the spatiotemporal characteristics of taxi operating using large-scale taxi trajectories with massive small file processing strategies on a Hadoop platform. More specifically, we first implement three methods, that is, Hadoop Archives, CombineFileInputFormat, and Sequence Files, to overcome the existing defects of Hadoop and then propose two strategies based on their performance evaluations. Next, we incorporate SF into Frequent Pattern growth algorithm and then implement the optimized FP-growth algorithm on a MapReduce framework. Finally, we analyze the characteristics of taxi operating in both spatial and temporal dimensions by MR-PFP in parallel. The results demonstrate that MR-PFP is superior to existing Parallel FP-growth algorithm in efficiency and scalability. (shrink)

Naturalistic stimuli, including movie, music, and speech, have been increasingly applied in the research of neuroimaging. Relative to a resting-state or single-task state, naturalistic stimuli can evoke more intense brain activities and have been proved to possess higher test–retest reliability, suggesting greater potential to study adaptive human brain function. In the current research, naturalistic functional magnetic resonance imaging (N-fMRI) has been a powerful tool to record brain states under naturalistic stimuli, and many efforts have been devoted to study the high-level (...) semantic features from spatial or temporal representations via N-fMRI. However, integrating both spatial and temporal characteristics of brain activities for better interpreting the patterns under naturalistic stimuli is still underexplored. In this work, a novel hybrid learning framework that comprehensively investigates both the spatial (via Predictive Model) and the temporal [via convolutional neural network (CNN) model] characteristics of the brain is proposed. Specifically, to focus on certain relevant regions from the whole brain, regions of significance (ROS), which contain common spatial activation characteristics across individuals, are selected via the Predictive Model. Further, voxels of significance (VOS), whose signals contain significant temporal characteristics under naturalistic stimuli, are interpreted via one-dimensional CNN (1D-CNN) model. In this article, our proposed framework is applied onto the N-fMRI data during naturalistic classical/pop/speech audios stimuli. The promising performance is achieved via the Predictive Model to differentiate the different audio categories. Especially for distinguishing the classic and speech audios, the accuracy of classification is up to 92%. Moreover, spatial ROS and VOS are effectively obtained. Besides, temporal characteristics of the high-level semantic features are investigated on the frequency domain via convolution kernels of 1D-CNN model, and we effectively bridge the “semantic gap” between high-level semantic features of N-fMRI and low-level acoustic features of naturalistic audios in the frequency domain. Our results provide novel insights on characterizing spatiotemporal patterns of brain activities via N-fMRI and effectively explore the high-level semantic features under naturalistic stimuli, which will further benefit the understanding of the brain working mechanism and the advance of naturalistic stimuli clinical application. (shrink)

Despite intense neurobiological investigation in psychiatric disorders, the basic disturbance that underlies the psychopathological symptoms of these illnesses remains unclear. Neuroimaging has focused mainly on the brain’s extrinsic activity, specifically task-evoked or stimulus-induced activity, as related to various sensorimotor, affective, cognitive, and social functions. Recently, the focus has shifted to the brain’s intrinsic activity, otherwise known as its resting state activity. While various abnormalities have been observed during this activity, their meaning and significance for the abnormal subjective experience in psychiatric (...) disorders, along with their various psychopathological symptoms, are yet to be defined. Recent findings link ruminations in depression to abnormal spatial organization of resting state activity. Analogously, thought disorder in schizophrenia can be traced to deficits in the resting state’s temporal structure and auditory hallucinations to spatial resting state changes. Based on these findings, psychiatric symptoms may be conceived as spatiotemporal disturbances of the resting state activity and its spatiotemporal structure. Importantly, this entails a new form of psychopathology—spatiotemporal psychopathology that directly links the brain and psyche, therefore having major diagnostic and therapeutic implications for clinical practice. (shrink)

Motor imagery is often used inducing changes in electroencephalographic (EEG) signals for imagery-based brain-computer interfacing (BCI). A BCI is a device translating brain signals into control signals providing severely motor-impaired persons with an additional, non-muscular channel for communication and control. In the last years, there is increasing interest using BCIs also for healthy people in terms of enhancement or gaming. Most studies focusing on improving signal processing feature extraction and classification methods, but the performance of a BCI can also be (...) improved by optimizing the user’s control strategies, e.g., using more vivid and engaging mental tasks for control. We used multichannel EEG to investigate neural correlates of a sports imagery task (playing tennis) compared to a simple motor imagery task (squeezing a ball). To enhance the vividness of both tasks participants performed a short physical exercise between two imagery sessions. EEG was recorded from 60 closely spaced electrodes placed over frontal, central, and parietal areas of 30 healthy volunteers divided in two groups. Whereas Group 1 (EG) performed a physical exercise between the two imagery sessions, Group 2 (CG) watched a landscape movie without physical activity. Spatiotemporal event-related desynchronization (ERD) and event-related synchronization (ERS) patterns during motor imagery (MI) tasks were evaluated. The results of the EG showed significant stronger ERD patterns in the alpha frequency band (8–13 Hz) during MI of tennis after training. Our results are in evidence with previous findings that MI in combination with motor execution has beneficial effects. We conclude that sports MI combined with an interactive game environment could be a future promising task in motor learning and rehabilitation improving motor functions in late therapy processes or support neuroplasticity. (shrink)

Theoretical analyses of person–environment interaction describe complex models, addressing different levels of social systems, while models of the sense of community provide a base for transferring views of this interaction to the national level. This paper presents two studies that explored the structure of the sense of country and its relation to emigration plans and social identification. Study 1 involved 1,005 adults from Latvia. The Sense of Country Inventory included influence, perceived opportunities, belonging, and spatiotemporal commitment as the components (...) of this sense. The bifactor model demonstrated the best fit and confirmed the general factor, integrating components of the sense of country, and specific factors, emphasizing its complexity. The validation demonstrated that the general sense of country is the main negative predictor of emigration plans. Study 2 included 247 participants who completed the SOCI and Identification With All Humanity Scale. Correlating with national identification, the sense of country negatively predicted emigration plans that reflected the social identity continuity pathway. In turn, a negative relationship between the sense of country and global identification, which positively predicted emigration plans, revealed a social identity gain pathway. Together, the studies present the integrative nature of the sense of country and its links to emigration plans and national and global social identification. (shrink)

What is social science? This article examines this perennial question by addressing the relation between human biology and social science, exploring whether social science constitutes a “science” in the sense conventionally denoted. In suggesting that social science is defined by a “spatiotemporal specificity” different from life science, I will explore the historicist traditions represented by writers such as Knies, Schmoller, Weber, and Collingwood. Drawing on processual philosophies in sociology and biology and the example provided by sociotechnical “acceleration,” I (...) argue that the human flair for language, symbolism, and technology distinguishes humanity and is constitutive of the way social science tends toward process particularity and the historical rather than process recurrence and the transhistorical. I then consider implications for historicist conjecture, sociological theory, and natural science; the transposability of theory and data; the design of sociopolitical policy; and the need for epistemological pluralism among sociologists pursuing “biosocial” endeavors. (shrink)

Process jargon is widespread in the physical sciences. Beginning with the work of Wesley Salmon, several accounts in philosophy of science have attempted to provide a definition of "process" compatible with scientists' understanding of causation and explanation. The proposed characterisation links processes to the properties of the spacetime they inhabit as regards continuity and genuine causality. Recent developments in theories of quantum gravity challenge the validity of process ontologies at the fundamental scale. In particular, this paper examines how arguments based (...) on minimal length in the literature question the traditional definition of process. Process realism does not favour the processualist against these arguments. I conclude that certain theories of quantum gravity prevent a processual representation of the intended phenomena at the fundamental scale because they predict a violation of either the spatiotemporal specification or the causality conditions. In the end, the processualist faces a dilemma: either weaken the accepted definition of process without falling into substance ontologies, or hope that problematic theories of quantum gravity will be disconfirmed. (shrink)

While neuroscience has made enormous progress in understanding the brain, the implications of these empirical findings for ontological questions in philosophy including the mind–body problem remain yet unclear. In the first paper, I discussed the model of brain that as implied and supported by the empirical data. This leads me now to the question of an empirically plausible ontology of brain. Therefore, the aim in this second paper is the ontological characterization of the brain in terms of a process-based ontology (...) that avoids what Whitehead described as “simple location” and “fallacy of misplaced concreteness”. The discussion of the model of the brain is complemented by developing a process-based ontological characterization of the brain. Specifically, as based on Whitehead, I argue that “simple location” of the brain as thing or object in time and space amounts to nothing but an abstraction rendering what Whitehead described as “fallacy of misplaced concreteness”. Instead of describing the brain as static, non-temporal and isolated thing or object, I characterize the brain ontologically by dynamic, temporal, and relational processes. This leads me to a process-based ontology of brain which may be specified in spatiotemporal terms. Since the world’s larger spatiotemporal range or scale contains, e.g., nests, the smaller one of the brain, I characterize their ontological relationship by “spatiotemporal nestedness” and “spatiotemporal directedness”. Such spatiotemporal relationship between world and brain precludes the confusion between the world as whole and the brain as part, e.g., “mereological confusion”. I conclude that process-based or better, more specifically, spatiotemporal ontology of the brain and its relationship to the world may offer novel views on the question for the ontological relationship between mind and brain, e.g., the mind–brain problem, by converting or reformulating it as “world-brain problem”. (shrink)

• In this paper we combine motion captured data with linguistic notions in a game-like intelligent tutoring system, in order to help elementary school students to better differentiate literal from metaphorical uses of motion verbs, based on embodied information. In addition to the thematic goal, we intend to improve young students’ attention and spatiotemporal memory, by presenting sensorimotor data experimentally collected from thirty two participants in our motion capturing labs. Furthermore, we examine the accomplishment of game’s goals and compare (...) them to curriculum’s approach. Sixty nine elementary school students were randomly divided in two experimental groups (game and traditional) and one control group, which did not undergo any intervention. All groups were tested in pre and posttests. Even though the diagnostic pretests present a uniform picture, two way analysis of variance suggests that the experimental groups showed progress in posttests and, more specifically, game group remarkably progressed in the verbs/actions presented during the intervention. Furthermore, in the game condition the participants needed gradually shorter period of time to identify the avatar’s actions. This finding was considered as a first indication of attentional and spatiotemporal memory’s improvement, while the game’s assistance features cultivated students’ metacognitive perception. (shrink)

Abstract“Sign stimuli” elicit specific patterns of behavior when an organism's motivation is appropriate. In the toad, visually released prey-catching involves orienting toward the prey, approaching, fixating, and snapping. For these action patterns to be selected and released, the prey must be recognized and localized in space. Toads discriminate prey from nonprey by certain spatiotemporal stimulus features. The stimulus-response relations are mediated by innate releasing mechanisms (RMs) with recognition properties partly modifiable by experience. Striato-pretecto-tectal connectivity determines the RM's recognition and (...) localization properties, whereas medialpallio-thalamo-tectal circuitry makes the system sensitive to changes in internal state and to prior history of exposure to stimuli. RMs encode the diverse stimulus conditions referring to the same prey object through different combinations of “specialized” tectal neurons, involving cells selectively tuned to prey features. The prey-selective neurons express the outcome of information processing in functional units consisting of interconnected cells. Excitatory and inhibitory interactions among feature-sensitive tectal and pretectal neurons specify the perceptual operations involved in distinguishing the prey from its background, selecting its features, and discriminating it from predators. Other connections indicate stimulus location. The results of these analyses are transmitted by specialized neurons projecting from the tectum to bulbar/spinal motor systems, providing a sensorimotor interface. Specific combinations of such projective neurons – mediating feature- and space-related messages – form “command releasing systems” that activate corresponding motor pattern generators for appropriate prey-catching action patterns. (shrink)

The program of “neurophenomenal structuralism” is presented as an agenda for a genuine structuralist neuroscience of consciousness that seeks to understand specific phenomenal experiences as strictly relational affairs. The paper covers a broad range of topics. It starts from considerations about neural change detection and relational coding that motivate a solution of the Newman problem of the brain in terms of spatiotemporal relations. Next, phenomenal quality spaces and their Q-structures are discussed. Neurophenomenal structuralism proclaims a homomorphic mapping of the (...) structures of self-organized neural maps in the brain onto Q-structures, and it will be demonstrated how this leads to a new and special version of structural representationalism about phenomenal content. A methodological implication of neurophenomenal structuralism is that it proposes measurement procedures that focus on the relationships between different stimuli (as, for instance, similarity ratings or representational geometry methods). Finally, it will be shown that neurophenomenal structuralism also has strong philosophical implications, as it leads to holism about phenomenal experiences and serves to reject inverted qualia scenarios. (shrink)

A provocative ontological-cum-semantic position asserting that the right ontology is austere in its exclusion of numerous common-sense and scientific posits and that many statements employing such posits are nonetheless true. The authors of Austere Realism describe and defend a provocative ontological-cum-semantic position, asserting that the right ontology is minimal or austere, in that it excludes numerous common-sense posits, and that statements employing such posits are nonetheless true, when truth is understood to be semantic correctness under contextually operative semantic standards. Terence (...) Horgan and Matjaz Potrc argue that austere realism emerges naturally from consideration of the deep problems within the naive common-sense approach to truth and ontology. They offer an account of truth that confronts these deep internal problems and is independently plausible: contextual semantics, which asserts that truth is semantically correct affirmability. Under contextual semantics, much ordinary and scientific thought and discourse is true because its truth is indirect correspondence to the world. After offering further arguments for austere realism and addressing objections to it, Horgan and Potrc consider various alternative austere ontologies. They advance a specific version they call "blobjectivism"--the view that the right ontology includes only one concrete particular, the entire cosmos, which, although it has enormous local spatiotemporal variability, does not have any proper parts. The arguments in Austere Realism are powerfully made and concisely and lucidly set out. The authors' contentions and their methodological approach--products of a decade-long collaboration--will generate lively debate among scholars in metaphysics, ontology, and philosophy. (shrink)

This study addresses a central question in neuroscience: What is the physical nature of consciousness? Taking a neuroscientific approach, the study first establishes working definitions for its principal terms—qualia, consciousness, and information—to specify clearly the entities under investigation. It then analyzes the essential features of these defined terms. Information, in particular, is examined in detail across several aspects, including its carrier, nature, effects, interpretations, and meanings. The study next investigates the essential properties of consciousness and identifies potential entities that could (...) underlie it. Candidate entities are drawn from two groups: physically established non-material entities in the brain, such as electrical fields, magnetic fields, electromagnetic waves, and neural information, and physically unestablished non-material entities proposed in various theoretical models. Each candidate is assessed for whether it can satisfy the required properties of consciousness. The analysis finds that the entity that most parsimoniously meets these criteria, without invoking new forces or physical laws, is neural information. Accordingly, the study proposes the hypothesis that consciousness is a form of neural information, specifically information encoded in the spatiotemporal patterns of electrochemical signaling within certain neural circuits. It presents empirically verifiable predictions derived from this hypothesis, making the hypothesis falsifiable. Further, it identifies a neural mechanism by which some information can manifest phenomenally as consciousness, enabling the occurrence of consciousness in the brain, and another mechanism underlying why this manifestation occurs only from the first-person perspective of some neural circuits. The study then compares its hypothesis and proposed mechanisms with existing theories of consciousness, clarifying how it differs in focus, explanatory scope, and thesis. Broader implications for neuroscience, clinical research, and the possibility of artificial consciousness are discussed, along with limitations of the present framework. Overall, because its evidence and arguments lie entirely within established neuroscience, with no novel entities, forces, or physical laws posited, this study advances a parsimonious and neuroscientifically grounded hypothesis on the physical nature of consciousness. (shrink)

The boundary problem is related to the binding problem, part of a family of puzzles and phenomenal experiences that theories of consciousness (ToC) must either explain or eliminate. By comparison with the phenomenal binding problem, the boundary problem has received very little scholarly attention since first framed in detail by Rosengard in 1998, despite discussion by Chalmers in his widely cited 2016 work on the combination problem. However, any ToC that addresses the binding problem must also address the boundary problem. (...) The binding problem asks how a unified first person perspective (1PP) can bind experiences across multiple physically distinct activities, whether billions of individual neurons firing or some other underlying phenomenon. To a first approximation, the boundary problem asks why we experience hard boundaries around those unified 1PPs and why the boundaries operate at their apparent spatiotemporal scale. We review recent discussion of the boundary problem, identifying several promising avenues but none that yet address all aspects of the problem. We set out five specific boundary problems to aid precision in future efforts. We also examine electromagnetic (EM) field theories in detail, given their previous success with the binding problem, and introduce a feature with the necessary characteristics to address the boundary problem at a conceptual level. Topological segmentation can, in principle, create exactly the hard boundaries desired, enclosing holistic, frame-invariant units capable of effecting downward causality. The conclusion outlines a programme for testing this concept, describing how it might also differentiate between competing EM ToCs. (shrink)

The authors of Austere Realism describe and defend a provocative ontological-cum-semantic position, asserting that the right ontology is minimal or austere, in that it excludes numerous common-sense posits, and that statements employing such posits are nonetheless true, when truth is understood to be semantic correctness under contextually operative semantic standards. Terence Horgan and Matjaz [hacek over z] Potrc [hacek over c] argue that austere realism emerges naturally from consideration of the deep problems within the naive common-sense approach to truth and (...) ontology. They offer an account of truth that confronts these deep internal problems and is independently plausible: contextual semantics, which asserts that truth is semantically correct affirmability. Under contextual semantics, much ordinary and scientific thought and discourse is true because its truth is indirect correspondence to the world. After offering further arguments for austere realism and addressing objections to it, Horgan and Potrc [hacek over c] consider various alternative austere ontologies. They advance a specific version they call "blobjectivism"--the view that the right ontology includes only one concrete particular, the entire cosmos, which, although it has enormous local spatiotemporal variability, does not have any proper parts. The arguments in Austere Realism are powerfully made and concisely and lucidly set out. The authors' contentions and their methodological approach--products of a decade-long collaboration--will generate lively debate among scholars in metaphysics, ontology, and philosophy. Terence E. Horgan is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona. Matjaz [hacek over z] Potrc [hacek over c] is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana. (shrink)

This paper articulates an account of causation as a collection of information-theoretic relationships between patterns instantiated in the causal nexus. I draw on Dennett’s account of real patterns to characterize potential causal relata as patterns with specific identification criteria and noise tolerance levels, and actual causal relata as those patterns instantiated at some spatiotemporal location in the rich causal nexus as originally developed by Salmon. I develop a representation framework using phase space to precisely characterize causal relata, including their (...) degree of counterfactual robustness, causal profiles, causal connectivity, and privileged grain size. By doing so, I show how the philosophical notion of causation can be rendered in a format that is amenable for direct application of mathematical techniques from information theory such that the resulting informational measures are causal informational measures. This account provides a metaphysics of causation that supports interventionist semantics and causal modeling and discovery techniques. (shrink)

This paper forms part of a wider campaign: to deny pointillisme, the doctrine that a physical theory's fundamental quantities are defined at points of space or of spacetime, and represent intrinsic properties of such points or point-sized objects located there; so that properties of spatial or spatiotemporal regions and their material contents are determined by the point-by-point facts. More specifically, this paper argues against pointillisme about the concept of velocity in classical mechanics; especially against proposals by Tooley, Robinson and (...) Lewis. A companion paper argues against pointillisme about -geometry, as proposed by Bricker. To avoid technicalities, I conduct the argument almost entirely in the context of "Newtonian" ideas about space and time, and the classical mechanics of point-particles, i.e. extensionless particles moving in a void. But both the debate and my arguments carry over to relativistic physics. Introduction The wider campaign 2.1 Connecting physics and metaphysics 2.1.1 Avoiding controversy about the intrinsic–extrinsic distinction 2.1.2 Distinction from three mathematical distinctions 2.2 Classical mechanics is not pointilliste, and can be perdurantist 2.2.1 Two versions of pointillisme 2.2.2 Two common claims 2.2.3 My contrary claims 2.3 In more detail... 2.3.1 Four violations of pointillisme 2.3.2 For perdurantism Velocity as intrinsic? 3.1 Can properties represented by vectors be intrinsic to a point? 3.2 Orthodox velocity is extrinsic but local 3.2.1 A question and a debate 3.2.2 The verdict 3.3 Against intrinsic velocity 3.3.1 A common view—and a common problem 3.3.2 Tooley's proposal and his arguments 3.3.3 Tooley's further discussion "Shadow velocities": Lewis and Robinson 4.1 The proposal 4.2 Criticism: the vector field remains unspecified 4.3 Avoiding the presupposition of persistence, using Hilbert's symbol 4.4 Comparison with Robinson and Lewis. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that what is often discussed under the umbrella of `spacetime emergence' in the philosophy of quantum gravity in fact consists of a plethora of distinct and even highly different problems. We therefore advocate to cast such debates more specifically in terms of the emergent spatiotemporal aspects, as is already done in the physics literature. We first show how ambiguous the notion of spacetime is already in general relativity. We then argue against three ways to (...) reject our call for specificity: the many distinct philosophical problems relating to the emergence of the various spatiotemporal aspects do not suggest any singular, overarching, or exceptional problem of spacetime emergence. We also discuss how the objections are reflected by five conceptions of spacetime. Next, we observe that different spatiotemporal aspects are emergent in the different quantum gravity approaches, whereby investigating emergence in quantum gravity collectively is problematic. Finally, we illustrate how philosophical inquiries that employ notions of spacetime emergence are aided by conducting the investigation at the level of specific spatiotemporal aspects. (shrink)

The concept of time has long been the subject of complex philosophical reflections and scientific research, which have interpreted it differently based on the starting question, context, and level of analysis of the system under investigation. In the present review, we first explore how time has been studied among different scientific fields such as physics, neuroscience, and bioecological sciences. We emphasize the fundamental role of an organism's ability to perceive the passage of time and dynamically adapt to its environment for (...) survival. Growth, reproduction, and communication processes are subject to spatiotemporal variability, and the sense of time allows organisms to structure their interactions, track past, and anticipate future events. Specifically, building on a relational and multilevel approach, this paper proposes an analysis of various aspects of the temporal dimension of plants—ranging from their growth and adaptation rates to behavioral strategies and modes of communication—culminating in a focused examination of research based on the kinematical analysis of plant movement. By adopting a comparative and critical approach, we raise several questions about the temporality of processes from different perspectives. Further insights into the timing of physiological and communication processes in plants will help to recognize the central role of temporality in life and to discover mechanisms, processes, and behavioral strategies that may be common (or similar) across species or unique (species-specific) for some organisms, both with and without nervous systems. (shrink)

We introduce a thought experiment on anti-pain algorithms that helps clarify competing theories of computational functionalism about consciousness. Under conventional interpretations of computation, it is natural to allow the existence of such algorithms: inverse functions that return a system exactly to the state it was in prior to some minimal pain algorithm. The challenge lies in asking whether pain is felt upon the conclusion of the minimal pain algorithm but prior to the conclusion of the anti-pain algorithm. Both yes and (...) no replies have intuitions in their favour but lead to options that constrain the nature of computationalist theories, motivating the value in the thought experiment for refining existing theories. If pain is felt before the anti-pain algorithm concludes, theorists are pressured either to permit micro-functions such that computational functionalism approximates phenomenal realism or to restrict consciousness only to systems that have system-wide visibility mechanisms. On the other hand, if pain is not felt, there are pressures to permit free-floating qualia, with only a tenuous link to the spatiotemporal physicality of its supervenience base. Objections are discussed, including rejecting the possibility of reversible computation, whether in general or specifically for consciousness algorithms, and introducing notions of causality that move beyond a classical Turing Machine framework. (shrink)

In this paper I develop a novel account of the phenomenality of language by focusing on characteristics of perceived speech. I explore the extent to which the spoken word can be said to have a horizonal structure similar to that of spatiotemporal objects: our perception of each is informed by habitual associations and expectations formed through past experiences of the object or word and other associated objects and experiences. Specifically, the horizonal structure of speech in use can fruitfully be (...) compared to that of a tool in use. The comparison suggests an account of our linguistic faculty as continuous with more foundational faculties of perception and action. I provide empirical corroboration of this account by drawing on recent neuroimaging studies of the multimodal, sensorimotor bases of speech comprehension. I then discuss how such an understanding of our linguistic ability helps advocates of embodied, non-representationalist accounts of cognition respond to a common objection. Critics grant that embodied approaches may be adequate to account for lower-level, online modes of cognition, such as perception and action, which directly engage their object. But they question whether such approaches can “scale up” to higher modes of cognition, such as imagination, memory, thought, and language, which can entertain absent, non-existent, or abstract objects. By providing a plausible account of the continuity of lower cognition and language-involving cognition, my approach responds to this objection, at least where language is concerned. (shrink)

Short video addiction (SVA) has emerged as a growing behavioral and social issue, driven by the widespread use of digital platforms that provide highly engaging, personalized, and brief video content. We investigated the neuroanatomical and functional substrates of SVA symptoms, alongside brain transcriptomic and cellular characteristics, using Inter-Subject Representational Similarity Analysis (IS-RSA) and transcriptomic approaches. Behaviorally, we found that dispositional envy was associated with SVA. Structurally, SVA was positively correlated with increased morphological volumes in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and bilateral (...) cerebellum. Functionally, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), cerebellum, and temporal pole (TP) exhibited heightened spontaneous activity, which was positively correlated with SVA severity. Transcriptomic and cellular analyses also showed specific genes linked to gray matter volume (GMV) associated with SVA, with predominant expression in excitatory and inhibitory neurons. These genes showed distinct spatiotemporal expression patterns in the cerebellum during adolescence. This study offers a comprehensive framework integrating structural, functional, and neurochemical evidence to highlight the neural-transcriptomic underpinnings of SVA symptoms in a non-clinical population. (shrink)

It remains a standing problem how and why the first nervous systems evolved. Molecular and genomic information is now rapidly accumulating but the macroscopic organization and functioning of early nervous systems remains unclear. To explore potential evolutionary options, a coordination centered view is discussed that diverges from a standard input–output view on early nervous systems. The scenario involved, the skin brain thesis, stresses the need to coordinate muscle-based motility at a very early stage. This paper addresses how this scenario with (...) its focus on coordination also deals with sensory aspects. It will be argued that the neural structure required to coordinate extensive sheets of contractile tissue for motility provides the starting point for a new multicellular organized form of sensing. Moving a body by muscle contraction provides the basis for a multicellular organization that is sensitive to external surface structure at the scale of the animal body. Instead of thinking about early nervous systems as being connected to the environment merely through input and output, the implication developed here is that early nervous systems provide the foundation for a highly specific animal sensorimotor organization in which neural activity directly reflects bodily and environmental spatiotemporal structure. While the SBT diverges from the input–output view, it is closely linked to and supported by ongoing work on embodied approaches to intelligence to which it adds a new interpretation of animal embodiment and sensorimotor organization. (shrink)

On Anselmian theism, God is, amongst other things, a necessary being. On genuine modal realism, possible worlds are maximal mereological sums of spatiotemporally connected individuals. I argue in this paper that AT and GMR are either incompatible or their conjunction leads to—amongst other things—modal collapse. Specifically, I argue: regardless of whether God is concrete or abstract, His necessary existence either is inconsistent with AT-GMR or it leads to, amongst other things, modal collapse for AT-GMR. I conclude the paper by contending (...) that, if I am correct, the ATist will have an argument against the truth of GMR, and the GMRist will have an argument against the truth of AT. (shrink)

Signers and speakers coordinate a broad range of intentionally expressive actions within the spatiotemporal context of their face-to-face interactions (Parmentier, 1994; Clark, 1996; Johnston, 1996; Kendon, 2004). Varied semiotic repertoires combine in different ways, the details of which are rooted in the interactions occurring in a specific time and place (Goodwin, 2000; Kusters, Spotti, Swanwick & Tapio, 2017). However, intense focus in linguistics on conventionalized symbolic form/meaning pairings (especially those which are arbitrary) has obscured the importance of other semiotics (...) in face-to-face communication. A consequence is that the communicative practices resulting from diverse ways of being (e.g. deaf, hearing) are not easily united into a global theoretical framework. Here we promote a theory of language that accounts for how diverse humans coordinate their semiotic repertoires in face-to-face communication, bringing together evidence from anthropology, semiotics, gesture studies and linguistics. Our aim is to facilitate direct comparison of different communicative ecologies. We build on Clark’s (1996) theory of language use as ‘actioned’ via three methods of signaling: describing, indicating, and depicting. Each method is fundamentally different to the other, and they can be used alone or in combination with others during the joint creation of multimodal ‘composite utterances’ (Enfield, 2009). We argue that a theory of language must be able to account for all three methods of signaling as they manifest within and across composite utterances. From this perspective, language—and not only language use—can be viewed as intentionally communicative action involving the specific range of semiotic resources available in situated human interactions. (shrink)

According to the cluster of theories in the metaphysics of properties known as ‘trope’ theories, properties are collections of particular qualitative instances. Though increasingly influential, the cluster is sufficiently diverse for there to be little agreement as to the prospects of its members. The present essay articulates and defends a conception of tropes as primitively qualitatively complex, somewhat in the vein of Quinean nominalist objects. After clarifying the relationships among tropes, properties, property exemplification, and property conferral, the essay discusses the (...) benefits of this new ‘ostrich’ trope theory. Specifically, the theory explains better than prior trope theories both the spatiotemporal status of tropes and the capacity tropes have to confer properties onto objects. Moreover, the theory is immune to many of the concerns that threaten more orthodox trope ontologies. (shrink)

Kant argued that the perceptual representations of space and time were templates for the perceived spatiotemporal ordering of objects, and common to all modalities. His idea is that these perceptual representations were specific to no modality, but prior to all—they are pre-modal, so to speak. In this paper, it is argued that active perception—purposeful interactive exploration of the environment by the senses—demands premodal representations of time and space.

Time is a key element of consciousness as it includes multiple timescales from shorter to longer ones. This is reflected in our experience of various short-term phenomenal contents at discrete points in time as part of an ongoing, more continuous, and long-term ’stream of consciousness’. Can Integrated Information Theory (IIT) account for this multitude of timescales of consciousness? According to the theory, the relevant spatiotemporal scale for consciousness is the one in which the system reaches the maximum cause-effect power; (...) IIT currently predicts that experience occurs on the order of short timescales, namely, between 100 and 300 ms (theta and alpha frequency range). This can well account for the integration of single inputs into a particular phenomenal content. However, such short timescales leave open the temporal relation of specific phenomenal contents to others during the course of the ongoing time, that is, the stream of consciousness. For that purpose, we converge the IIT with the Temporo-spatial Theory of Consciousness (TTC), which, assuming a multitude of different timescales, can take into view the temporal integration of specific phenomenal contents with other phenomenal contents over time. On the neuronal side, this is detailed by considering those neuronal mechanisms driving the non-additive interaction of pre-stimulus activity with the input resulting in stimulus-related activity. Due to their non-additive interaction, the single input is not only integrated with others in the short-term timescales of 100-300 ms (alpha and theta frequencies) (as predicted by IIT) but, at the same time, also virtually expanded in its temporal (and spatial) features; this is related to the longer timescales (delta and slower frequencies) that are carried over from pre-stimulus to stimulus-related activity. Such a non-additive pre-stimulus-input interaction amounts to temporo-spatial expansion as a key mechanism of TTC for the constitution of phenomenal contents including their embedding or nesting within the ongoing temporal dynamic, i.e., the stream of consciousness. In conclusion, we propose converging the short-term integration of inputs postulated in IIT (100-300 ms as in the alpha and theta frequency range) with the longer timescales (in delta and slower frequencies) of temporo-spatial expansion in TTC. (shrink)

Information processing in neural systems can be described and analyzed at multiple spatiotemporal scales. Generally, information at lower levels is more fine-grained but can be coarse-grained at higher levels. However, only information processed at specific scales of coarse-graining appears to be available for conscious awareness. We do not have direct experience of information available at the scale of individual neurons, which is noisy and highly stochastic. Neither do we have experience of more macro-scale interactions, such as interpersonal communications. Neurophysiological (...) evidence suggests that conscious experiences co-vary with information encoded in coarse-grained neural states such as the firing pattern of a population of neurons. In this article, we introduce a new informational theory of consciousness: Information Closure Theory of Consciousness (ICT). We hypothesize that conscious processes are processes which form non-trivial informational closure (NTIC) with respect to the environment at certain coarse-grained scales. This hypothesis implies that conscious experience is confined due to informational closure from conscious processing to other coarse-grained scales. Information Closure Theory of Consciousness (ICT) proposes new quantitative definitions of both conscious content and conscious level. With the parsimonious definitions and a hypothesize, ICT provides explanations and predictions of various phenomena associated with consciousness. The implications of ICT naturally reconcile issues in many existing theories of consciousness and provides explanations for many of our intuitions about consciousness. Most importantly, ICT demonstrates that information can be the common language between consciousness and physical reality. (shrink)

Mystical religious experiences typically purport to engage with the transcendent and often claim to involve encounters with spiritual entities or a detachment from the material world. Daoism diverges from this paradigm. This paper examines Daoist mystical experiences of bodily transformations and explores their epistemological implications. Specifically, we defend the justificatory power of Daoist somatic experiences against the disanalogy objection. The disanalogy objection posits that mystical experiences, in contrast to sense perceptions, are not socially verifiable and thereby lack prima facie epistemic (...) value. We argue that some Daoist mystical bodily states, being essentially spatiotemporal, are exempt from this challenge. This leads to a broader understanding of mysticism and offers a partial resolution to the disanalogy objection. (shrink)

Milk, sand, plastic, uranium, wood, carbon, and oil are kinds of stuff. The sand in Hawaii, the uranium in North Korea, and the oil in Iraq are portions of stuff. Not everyone believes in portions of stuff.1 Those who do are likely to agree that, whatever their more specific natures, portions of stuff can at least be identified with mereological sums of their subportions.2 It seems after all trivial that a given portion of stuff just is all of its subportions (...) combined—not by a spatiotemporal or any other substantive unifying relation, but by a mere principle of summation, a principle requiring that, if some things exist, there exists the sum, or collection, of those things. (shrink)

Husserl’s thesis of absolute individuation consists of two ideas: (1) unlike experiences and mundane entities, which are individuated via spatiotemporal position, the subject has its own principle of individuation and (2) even for non-subjects, the ultimate principle of individuation is their relationship with the subject. Absolute individuation is sometimes qualitatively interpreted (even by Husserl): owing to habituation, a subject’s personal character cannot be reinstantiated elsewhere. I argue against the qualitative interpretation for two reasons. The first is its inconsistency with (...) Husserl’s account of the individuation of non-subjects. Maximally specific universals cannot individuate a non-subject because they can be multiply instantiated, at least in different phantasies. If multiple instantiation is also possible for personal characters, then this poses a problem for the qualitative interpretation. The second reason is that the qualitative interpretation cannot explain the subjective contribution to the individuation of non-subjects. I consequently propose an extra-qualitative interpretation: The relevant subject should be defined as one-off sic et simpliciter. It has no other determinations than one-offness and is, thus, pre-spatiotemporal. This can explain what individuates instances of maximally specific spatiotemporal universals, thereby addressing (2) above. It also highlights the need to recognize the respective contributions made by multiple notions of the subject. Husserl’s context-dependent distinction between constitutive determinations and principia individuationis may shed light on the qualitative/non-qualitative difference in contemporary metaphysics. The hierarchical model of individuation can also illuminate the debate around possible worlds and haecceitism. (shrink)

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization recently declared transhumance pastoralism as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The notion of heritage seeks to recognize the culture behind the seasonal grazing movements along herding routes, between distant and dissimilar ecosystems. The pastoral families move with their herds from pasturelands used during the winter (winter-lands) to areas pastured during the summer (summer-lands). Whereas this is a key step towards the recognition of the cultural dimension associated to this ancient practice, a (...) relevant feature of transhumance pastoralism is its strong linkage with environmental dynamics. This activity developed in a spatiotemporal and co-evolutionary trajectory, which gave rise to a pastoral territory. A territory is the union or linkage of a meaning with a specific place, that is, the space that is appropriated and valued, both symbolically and instrumentally, by human groups. Hence, the pastoral territory represents the socio-ecological system that integrates a pastoral-based community with the natural environment that it inhabits. We propose a co-evolutionary approach to analyzing some key attributes of transhumant pastoralism, which modulate the socio-ecological interdependence. Based on a study case from Northwest Patagonia, Argentina, we identified and characterized seven attributes: (I) mobility, (II) connectivity, (III) temporal synchrony, (IV) local interdependence, (V) local ecological knowledge, (VI) adaptive capacity legacy, and (VII) mixture of land tenure. We discuss these features as examples that represent keystone socio-ecological attributes for the recognition of transhumant pastoral territories as a biocultural heritage. (shrink)

In this chapter, having already provided some motivation for phasalism, the author begins the project of fleshing out a detailed phasalist metaphysics. One of the most important elements of a phasalist metaphysics is a phasalist criterion of identity for material objects. Phasalists take a non-standard position on which changes material objects can and do survive, so they owe it to their conversation partners to paint a broader metaphysical picture in which this non-standard view can be comfortably situated. Therefore, this chapter (...) is devoted to formulating and defending a phasalist criterion of identity that (roughly) concerns itself with only the spatiotemporal features of objects, and not their sortal properties, nor any properties unique to material objects of specific sorts. The author argues that his spatiotemporal criterion enjoys a number of important virtues, but he does not claim—and indeed he does not believe—that it is the only criterion a phasalist might adopt. (shrink)

The “species-as-individuals” thesis takes species, or taxa, to be individuals. On grounds of spatiotemporal boundedness, any biological entity at any level of complexity subject to evolutionary processes is an individual. From evolutionary theory flows an ontology that does not countenance universal properties shared by evolving entities. If austere nominalism were applied to evolving entities, however, nature would be reduced to a mere flow of passing events, each one a blob in space–time and hence of passing interest only. Yet if (...) there is genuine biodiversity in nature, if nature is genuinely carved into species, and taxa, then these evolutionary entities will be genuinely differentiated into specific kinds, each species being one of its kind. Given the fact that evolving entities have un-sharp boundaries, an appropriately weak, “non-essentialist” concept of natural kind has to be invoked that does not allow for strong identity conditions. The thesis of this paper is that species are not either individuals, or natural kinds. Instead, species are complex wholes (particulars, individuals) that instantiate a specific natural kind. (shrink)

The pervasive use of distributional semantic models or word embeddings for both cognitive modeling and practical application is because of their remarkable ability to represent the meanings of words. However, relatively little effort has been made to explore what types of information are encoded in distributional word vectors. Knowing the internal knowledge embedded in word vectors is important for cognitive modeling using distributional semantic models. Therefore, in this paper, we attempt to identify the knowledge encoded in word vectors by conducting (...) a computational experiment using Binder et al.'s (2016) featural conceptual representations based on neurobiologically motivated attributes. In an experiment, these conceptual vectors are predicted from text‐based word vectors using a neural network and linear transformation, and prediction performance is compared among various types of information. The analysis demonstrates that abstract information is generally predicted more accurately by word vectors than perceptual and spatiotemporal information, and specifically, the prediction accuracy of cognitive and social information is higher. Emotional information is also found to be successfully predicted for abstract words. These results indicate that language can be a major source of knowledge about abstract attributes, and they support the recent view that emphasizes the importance of language for abstract concepts. Furthermore, we show that word vectors can capture some types of perceptual and spatiotemporal information about concrete concepts and some relevant word categories. This suggests that language statistics can encode more perceptual knowledge than often expected. (shrink)

There is a view on consciousness that has strong intuitive appeal and empirical support: the intermediate-level theory of consciousness, proposed mainly by Ray Jackendoff and by Jesse Prinz. This theory identifies a specific “intermediate” level of representation as the basis of human phenomenal consciousness, which sits between high-level non-perspectival thought processes and low-level disjointed feature-detection processes in the perceptual and cognitive processing hierarchy. In this article, we show that the claim that consciousness arises at an intermediate-level is true of some (...) cognitive systems, but only in virtue of specific constraints on their active interactions with the environment. We provide ecological reasons for why certain processing levels in a cognitive hierarchy are privileged with respect to consciousness. We do this from the perspective of a prediction-error minimization model of perception and cognition, relying especially on the notion of active inference: the privileged level for consciousness depends on the specific dispositions of an organism concerned with inferring its policies for action. Such a level is indeed intermediate for humans, but this depends on the spatiotemporal resolution of the typical actions that a human organism can normally perform. Thus, intermediateness is not an essential feature of consciousness. In organisms with different action dispositions the privileged level or levels may differ as well. (shrink)

This paper forms part of a wider campaign: to deny pointillisme. That is the doctrine that a physical theory's fundamental quantities are defined at points of space or of spacetime, and represent intrinsic properties of such points or point-sized objects located there; so that properties of spatial or spatiotemporal regions and their material contents are determined by the point-by-point facts. More specifically, this paper argues against pointillisme about the structure of space and-or spacetime itself, especially a paper by Bricker (...) (1993). A companion paper argues against pointillisme in mechanics, especially about velocity; it focusses on Tooley, Robinson and Lewis. To avoid technicalities, I conduct the argument almost entirely in the context of ``Newtonian'' ideas about space and time. But both the debate and my arguments carry over to relativistic, and even quantum, physics. (shrink)

A simple argument proposes a direct link between realism about quantum mechanics and one kind of metaphysical holism: if elementary quantum theory is at least approximately true, then there are entangled systems with intrinsic whole states for which the intrinsic properties and spatiotemporal arrangements of salient subsystem parts do not suffice. Initially, the proposal is compelling: we can find variations on such reasoning throughout influential discussions of entanglement. Upon further consideration, though, this simple argument proves a bit too simple. (...) To get such metaphysically robust consequences out, we need to put more than minimal realism in. This paper offers a diagnosis: our simple argument seems so compelling thanks to an equivocation. The predictions of textbook quantum theory already resonate with familiar holistic slogans; for realists, then, any underlying reality, conforming to such predictions, also counts as holistic in some sense or other, if only by association. Such associated holism, though, does not establish the sort of specific, robust supervenience failure claimed by our simple argument. While it may be natural to slide to this stronger conclusion, facilitating the slide is not minimal realism per se but an additional explanatory assumption about how and why reality behaves in accordance with our theory: roughly, quantum theory accurately captures patterns in the features and behaviors of physical reality because some underlying metaphysical structure constrains reality to exhibit these patterns. Along with the diagnosis comes a recommendation: we can and should understand one traditional disagreement about the metaphysics of entanglement as another manifestation of a familiar and more general conflict between reductive and non-reductive conceptions of metaphysical theorizing. Such reframing makes clearer what resources reductionists have for resisting the simple argument’s challenge from quantum holism. It also has an important moral for their opponents. Traditional focus on whole-part supervenience failure distracts from a root disagreement about metaphysical structure and its role in our theorizing. Non-reductionists fond of our simple argument would be better off tackling this root directly. (shrink)

Scientific theories of consciousness identify its contents with the spatiotemporal structure of neural population activity. We follow up on this approach by stating and motivating Dynamical Emergence Theory, which defines the amount and structure of experience in terms of the intrinsic topology and geometry of a physical system’s collective dynamics. Specifically, we posit that distinct perceptual states correspond to coarse-grained macrostates reflecting an optimal partitioning of the system’s state space—a notion that aligns with several ideas and results from computational (...) neuroscience and cognitive psychology. We relate DET to existing work, offer predictions for empirical studies, and outline future research directions. (shrink)

Social behavior is a complex integrative function that entails many aspects of the brain’s sensory, cognitive, emotional and movement capacities. Its neural processes are seldom simultaneous but occur according to precise spatiotemporal choreographies, manifested by the coordination of their oscillations within and between brains. Methods with good temporal resolution can help to identify so-called “neuromarkers” of social function and aid in disentangling the dynamical architecture of social brains. In our ongoing research, we have used dual-electroencephalography (EEG) to study neuromarker (...) dynamics during synchronic interactions in which pairs of subjects coordinate behavior spontaneously and intentionally (social coordination) and during diachronic transactions that require subjects to perceive or behave in turn (action observation, delayed imitation). In this paper, after outlining our dynamical approach to the neurophysiological basis of social behavior, we examine commonalities and differences in the neuromarkers that are recruited for both kinds of tasks. We find the neuromarker landscape to be task-specific: synchronic paradigms of social coordination reveal medial mu, alpha and the phi complex as contributing neuromarkers. Diachronic tasks recruit alpha as well, in addition to lateral mu rhythms and the newly discovered nu and kappa rhythms whose functional significance is still unclear. Social coordination, observation, and delayed imitation share commonality of context: in each of our experiments, subjects exchanged information through visual perception and moved in similar ways. Nonetheless, there was little overlap between their neuromarkers, a result that hints strongly of task-specific neural mechanisms for social behavior. The only neuromarker that transcended both synchronic and diachronic social behaviors was the ubiquitous alpha rhythm, which appears to be a key signature of visually-mediated social behaviors. The present paper is both an entry point and a challenge: much work remains to determine the nature and scope of recruitment of other neuromarkers, and to create theoretical models of their within- and between-brain dynamics during social interaction. (shrink)

What is neurophilosophy? Different variants of connecting neuroscience and philosophy emerged in recent years. Besides reductive, parallelistic, and neurophenomenological variants, we here focus on Non-Reductive Neurophilosophy as introduced by the author of this paper. NRNP can methodologically be characterized by the inclusion of multiple domains and various methodological strategies – this amounts to domain pluralism and method pluralism. That is combined with an iterative methodological movement between the different domains and, specifically conceptual and empirical domains resulting in concept-fact iterativity. Such (...) non-reductive neurophilosophical approach can make major contributions to both neuroscience and philosophy. Concerning the latter, we demonstrate how a non-reductive neurophilosophical approach allows taking into view a deeper neuro-ecological and spatiotemporal layer of Martin Heidegger’s Fundamental ontology and its “being in the world”. This may also require a more fundamental approach to consciousness in both its phenomenological features and neural basis – this has recently been proposed in the “Temporo-spatial theory of consciousness”. In sum, due to its particular methodological strategy, NRNP allows providing a broader more comprehensive framework to philosophical problems like subjectivity, consciousness, and mind-body problem. Moreover, NRNP may provide a novel deeper framing and reading of historical authors which may allow to connect them to current and systematic philosophical and even neuroscientific issues. ER -. (shrink)

In the philosophy of science, identity over time emerges as a central concern both as an ontological category in the interpretation of physical theories, and as an epistemological problem concerning the conditions of possibility of knowledge. In Reichenbach and subsequent writers on the problem of indistinguishable quantum particles we see the return of a contrast between Leibniz and Aquinas on the subject of individuation. The possibility of rejecting the principle of the identity of indiscernibles has certain logical difficulties, leading us (...) inexorably from ontology into epistemology. For the epistemological problem we attend to the differences that emerged between the (neo-)Kantian and logical empiricist traditions, also saliently displayed in Reichenbach's writings. After examining the contrast between Kant's and Leibniz's conceptions of empirical knowledge, specifically with respect to the irreducibility of spatiotemporal determinations, we explore an application of a neo-Kantian view to the same problem of indistinguishable quantum particles. (shrink)

This paper explores some of the insights offered by a dynamic systems approach into the nature habits. “Dynamic systems approach” is used here as an umbrella term for studies of cognition, behavior, or development as systems of elements that change over time (e.g. Thelen and Smith 1994, 2006), while “dynamical systems” is reserved for studies that use differential equations to describe time-based systems (e.g., Schöner and Kelso 1988, Tschacher and Dauwalder 2003). The following discussion draws primarily from the coordination dynamics (...) research of J.A. Scott Kelso (1995, 2012), which stems from Hermann Haken’s theory of synergetics (1977, 2003). However, the view of habits presented here is more of an interpretive application than a literature review, as the work on which it draws does not address habits explicitly. Perhaps this is because conventional notions of habit are too broad and loose to be captured succinctly in dynamic terms. Dynamical studies of human behavior have focused on more specific capacities such as motor coordination (Thelen et al. 1987), perception (Tuller et al. 1994), and learning (Kostrubiec et al. 2012). Yet this variety of applications suggests that the scope of the dynamic approach overlaps significantly with the domain of habits, so that dynamic concepts could be used to challenge and refine our conventional notions of habitual behavior. Accordingly, the goal of this paper is to raise questions about the nature of habits rather than present a comprehensive scientific theory. For a dynamic systems approach, stability is “the central concept” (Schöner and Kelso 1988, 1515). The “essential issues are the stability of the system, as indexed by the behavior of some collective measure of the multiple components, and the changes in stability over time” (Thelen and Smith 2006, 289). Intuitively, it would seem that the characteristic stability or stabilities of a system—its preferred states—are its habits. But the connection between stable states and habitual behavior is not as straightforward as it appears. The preferred states of a dynamic system are not simply “built in”; rather they depend on the interactive dynamics of the system’s components as well as the interactive couplings of the system with its environment. The following discussion explores the implications of four features of dynamic system stability for our understanding of habit: 1) stability is relative to timescale, and system stabilities at different timescales are interdependent; 2) the attractor landscape describing the characteristic stabilities of a system can be altered by various control parameters, including situational parameters; 3) systems can have multiple stabilities, such that the stability they exhibit at any given time may depend on their recent history; 4) learning processes tend to affect a whole cluster of interrelated stabilities and not just one stability in isolation. In light of these features of dynamic stability, it seems that there is no straightforward way to map conventional notions of personal habits onto stabilities of the human person considered as a nested dynamic system of body, brain, and environment (Chiel and Beer 1997). Should we consider as habits only the “intrinsic” stabilities of brain and body, regardless of the variety of behaviors that can arise from these stabilities in different situations? Or should only consider as habits those patterns of behavior that are regularly observed within a certain type of situation, regardless of how differently these patterns might be assembled at the body-brain level? From the dynamic perspective, stability and change are ubiquitous features at every level or spatiotemporal scale of description. Thus it seems arbitrary to apply the term “habit” only to one kind or level of stability, and perhaps this explains why the term is seldom used in dynamic systems literature. Yet it could be argued that this multilevel complexity is an advantage, as it can be used to challenge conventional notions of habit in interesting ways. Let us suppose that for any level of human behavior that can be described as a dynamic system, the stabilities or preferred states of that system—its “attractor landscape”—are at least analogous to habits, and should be considered as such. What is revealed by this broader, dynamic perspective?First, this view calls into question the usual timescale of habits, which is typically restricted to stable features of personality and behavior on the timescale of months or years (Lewis 2000). From a dynamic perspective, these stabilities are in principle no different from stabilities at faster and slower timescales. Moreover, different timescales of stability are interrelated: while the habits of any given timescale are shaped by the “deeper” habits of a slower timescale, they also can lead to changes at this deeper level. In other words, the “force of habit” is not one-way: habits are shaped by the behaviors that they themselves constrain. For example, mood is shaped by habits of personality, while a string of similar moods can lead to changes of personality. And though it may seem strange to think of moods as temporary emotional habits on the timescale of hours or days, their way of shaping and being shaped by emotional states on the timescale of seconds or minutes is analogous to the relationship between personality and mood. Likewise one can treat emotional states as habits that contribute to the attractor landscapes for thoughts and sensorimotor activity at an even faster timescale, while personality itself can be seen as evolving over the very “deep” landscape of developmental habits (Thelen and Smith 2006). Thus a dynamic view opens up a wider range of timescales across which the concept of habit might apply. But more importantly, even if we choose to restrict habit to just one of these levels, the interaction of timescales suggests that our understanding of any one level should draw upon at least two neighboring levels (Kelso 1995), if not the entire nested system. Second, a dynamic view of habit will include regular variations of the attractor landscape that occur in relation to changing parameters. In some cases these variations can be represented by bifurcation diagram that shows how the attractor landscape changes in relation to a single control parameter (Kelso and Engstrom 2006, 124-137). Most human behaviors, however, require that multiple parameters are taken into account. Now, provided that the important variables and parameters for describing characteristic variations of a certain behavior for an individual can be determined (a very difficult task, in most cases), one could, in theory, construct a comprehensive “habit topology” for that behavior: a map of how that behavior’s preferred states change in relation to various parameters. Notice that, depending on the parameters involved, some stabilities of this habit topology will be visited by the system more or less regularly. For instance, in the case of quadruped motion, assuming that the parameter of speed varies regularly over its natural range, a quadruped (e.g. horse) regularly visits the various gaits (walk, trot, gallop) that make up the preferred states of its habit topology (Schöner and Kelso, 1988, 1516; Hoyt and Taylor, 1981). However, for some behaviors, especially those that are sensitive to multiple parameters, certain regions of the habit topology can remain “hidden” because the required values of the relevant control parameters are rarely if ever encountered. Imagine, for example, that a person who never dances might be found, on one occasion, happily dancing the night away. Conventionally speaking, this behavior is not habitual. But from a dynamic view, it is hard to say. Perhaps on that occasion the person encountered just the right combination of circumstances—excellent mood, pleasurable company, Afro-Cuban music, fantastic mojitos, etc.—that made, for that person, dancing a very deep (and enjoyable) stability. If these circumstances will regularly facilitate the same behavior for that person, cannot we say that dancing is habitual for them in those circumstances? The point here is not to insist on this characterization, but to question our conventional understanding of habits, which typically involves assumptions about “normal” circumstances. Are habitual behaviors only rightfully considered as such if we regularly encounter the circumstances that facilitate their expression? If not, how would we determine the unexpressed or latent habits of a person, independently of circumstances? Third, it is important to consider that the attractor landscape of a particular behavior commonly has multiple stabilities even within restricted parameter values (Schöner and Kelso 1988, 1518). This phenomenon of multistability implies that “habitual behavior” may not be always the same even when all relevant variables are the same. In such cases, which stability describes the habit? The stability into which the system enters may depend on its recent history or on a symmetry breaking. For example, as represented by the much-studied HKB model (Chemero 2009), coordinated finger movement—waving the two index fingers in time with a metronome, where tempo or speed is the main control parameter—exhibits bistability at slower speeds and monostability at faster speeds (Kelso 1995). Within the slower, bistable regime, which of the two stable states the system exhibits may depend on its historical trajectory: for instance, if the system has just entered the bistable regime from the monostable regime, it will remain in the preferred state of the latter. Although coordinated finger movement may not seem representative of human behavior, coordination dynamics and its telltale characteristics—such as multistability—have been found in a wide range of behavioral and neural systems (Schöner and Kelso 1988; Kelso 2012), suggesting an important implication: perhaps what a person presently exhibits as habitual behavior within certain circumstances does not uniquely characterize what is habitual for that person even within those circumstances, but must also be understood as a result of a particular historical trajectory. The importance of history is also indicated by the phenomenon of hysteresis (Haken 2003, 8-9), i.e., when the state or behavior of a system is influenced by the residual stability of an antecedent regime. Thus certain behaviors might persist even after the attractor landscape has changed so that they are no longer “habitual” within the current context.Finally, if we define learning in terms of alterations to the attractor landscape for a particular behavior such that some states are newly stabilized while others are destabilized (Kostrubiec et al. 2012), the interrelatedness of habits as implied by the previous three points indicates that habits are rarely altered in a piecemeal fashion: learning affects entire clusters of habits that are composed of shared components. That is, learning affects an entire “habit space,” and not just individual habits in isolation (Kelso 1995, 159-186). This further complicates the picture of personal habits, as well as the kinds of learning strategies we should adopt to change them. For instance, it suggests that certain habitual behaviors that are difficult to target can be altered indirectly by focusing on other, related behaviors. It also suggests that in many cases—especially where a complex task demands a finely articulated set of behaviors—training should focus on shaping the overall “habit space” rather than each individual behavior. Moreover, as implied by the definition of learning just given, the dynamical approach suggests that habits are a necessary condition for learning and not just a product—contrary to the so-called “blank slate” model (Kostrubiec et al. 2012). In conclusion, we see that a fairly simple definition of habit in terms of dynamic stability yields a number of insights that question our conventional notion of personal habits as slow-changing, context-independent, uniquely repetitive, and discrete behaviors. At the same time, a dynamical view can give an account of the relative fixity of behaviors that we take to be habitual in the conventional sense. However, by showing that this fixity is dynamically and relationally constituted, a dynamical view reveals the elaborate context in which all habits are embedded. Moreover, human habits appear to be instances of a very general pattern: all living systems exhibit self-organized stabilities that reduce their degrees of freedom, producing robust but flexible repertoires of behavior. (shrink)

In this paper, a new method of quantitatively assessing continuity and discontinuity of visual attention is developed. The method is based on representing narrative information using graph theory. It is applicable to any type of narrative report. Since dream reports are often described as bizarre, and since bizarreness is partially characterized by discontinuities in plot, we chose to test our method on a set of dream data. Using specific criteria for identifying and arranging objects of visual attention, dream narratives from (...) 10 subjects were obtained and mapped onto graphs. The interrater reliabilities were 76% and 91% . Discontinuities in visual attention were quantified by plotting transitions from one part of a graph to another, which provided a spatiotemporal map of attention shifts within a narrative. This procedure was compared with other approaches to discontinuity and also applied to a set of 10 fantasy reports from the same subjects. The results showed that our method includes but transcends other approaches and has the capability to distinguish dream and fantasy reports. To our knowledge, the method provides the most rigorous and reliable measure to date of continuity and discontinuity of attention in narrative reports. (shrink)